July 28, 2014
Methinks the season culminated about the middle of this month, — that the year was of indefinite promise before, but that, after the first intense heats, we postponed the fulfillment of many of our hopes for this year, and, having as it were attained the ridge of the summer, commenced to descend the long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down-hill of the year.
Last evening it was much cooler, and I heard a decided fall sound of crickets.
- Partridges begin to go off in packs.
- Lark still sings, and robin.
- Small sparrows still heard.
- Kingbird lively.
- Veery and wood thrush (?) not very lately, nor oven-bird.
- Red-eye and chewink common.
- Night-warbler and evergreen-forest note not lately.
- Cherry-bird common.
- Turtle dove seen.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 28, 1854
The long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down-hill of the year. See July 26, 1853 ("This the afternoon of the year.How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent!"); July 30, 1852 ("After midsummer we have a belated feeling . . . see in each sight and hear in each sound some presage of the fall, just as in middle age man anticipates the end of life"); August 5, 1854 ( ".long declivity from midsummer to winter”); August 18, 1853 ("What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now, — as if the rest of the year were down-hill"); See also A Book of the Seasons: Midsummer midlife blues.
Partridges begin to go off in packs. See July 25, 1854 ("I now start some packs of partridges, old and young, going off together without mewing.") See also note to August 24, 1855 ("Scare up a pack of grouse”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Partridge.
Veery and wood thrush not very lately, nor oven-bird, See June 28, 1852 ("When I get nearer the wood, the veery is heard, and the oven-bird, or whet-saw, sounds hollowly from within the recesses of the wood. ... Now it is starlight [y]et I hear a chewink, veery, and wood thrush. ") See also May 13, 1856 (“At the swamp, hear the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush; the tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana. Also the oven-bird sings.”); June 15, 1854 ("Thrasher and catbird sing still; summer yellowbird and Maryland yellow-throat sing still; and oven-bird and veery"); July 10, 1854 ("The singing birds at present are . . . Red-eye, tanager, wood thrush, chewink, veery, oven-bird, — all even at midday.") July 27, 1852 ("Have I heard the veery lately?"): July 30, 1852 ("How long since I heard a veery? Do they go, or become silent, when the goldfinches herald the autumn? "); August 6, 1852 ("With the goldenrod comes the goldfinch. About the time his cool twitter is heard, does not the bobolink, thrasher, catbird, oven-bird, veery, etc., cease?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Veery and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Oven-bird
Cooler last evening
and I heard a decided
fall sound of crickets.
The ridge of summer
the long slope toward winter –
all our hopes postponed.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The ridge of summer
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality."
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024
tinyurl.com/hdt-540728
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